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Sabyon Sauce
Mix one quarter of a cup of sherry, the grated rind and juice of half a lemon and one-half cup sugar, beating constantly. Add beaten yolks of two eggs, place over fire, beating as it thickens. When sufficiently thick pour over the stiffly beaten whites of the two eggs.
A frothy wine-and-egg sauce for steamed and boiled puddings, written for a cook who already knows that egg yolks over direct heat need constant attention. The whole thing takes under ten minutes and does not keep.
- Use a double boiler"Place over fire" meant a saucepan set directly on the range, where a cook could pull it back off the heat instantly. Over a modern burner the yolks will scramble; set the bowl over barely simmering water and whisk without stopping.
- Know when it is thick enough"Sufficiently thick" means the mixture has grown noticeably in volume and holds a ribbon on the whisk for a second or two, at roughly 160-170F. Past that the yolks curdle and no amount of beating brings them back.
- The whites are not cookedHot yolk poured over stiffly beaten whites warms them but does not reliably bring them to a safe temperature. Use pasteurized eggs if serving anyone pregnant, elderly, very young or immune-compromised.
- SherryA dry or medium sherry suits best; cream sherry pushes an already sweet sauce over. Marsala is traditional in Italian zabaglione and can be substituted, allowing for its own sweetness.
- SugarHalf a cup to two yolks is a sweet sauce by current taste, appropriate to an unsweetened steamed pudding. A third of a cup suits most modern desserts.
- Yield and timingEnough for four to six servings, spooned over rather than pooled. It must go to the table within a few minutes of being finished, as it begins to weep and collapse on standing.
- Serving coldIf you want it cold, set the bowl in ice water and keep whisking until it stops steaming before folding in the whites, then chill no more than an hour.
This is sabayon, the French spelling of the Italian zabaglione — whipped egg yolks, sugar and fortified wine beaten over gentle heat until they foam. Its origins are generally traced to northern Italy, with Turin and Venice both claiming it, and it seems likely to have reached the English and American table by way of French professional cookery in the nineteenth century, which would account for the half-anglicized form of the name. The folded-in whites are probably the domestic touch: a restaurant sabayon relies on yolks alone for volume, but a home cook working over an unpredictable range gets a more forgiving, more voluminous sauce by stretching two eggs into something that will cover a whole pudding — the elegant option, the one you made when the plain steamed pudding needed dressing up for company.